He didn’t look hurt, but instead he looked over at Clara after their fall. After nodding to himself, Bobo picked Clara up and pushed her away to a nearby location between two giant buildings to hide.
While that happened, more of those blades kept flying at them, sometimes missing and hitting the nearby wall that nearly exploded from how strong they were thrown. Looking back, it was another knife–the same one that cut Bobo up.
“Clara,” Bobo said, his voice harsh and loud. “Get out of here as fast as possible.”
“But, Bobo…!” Clara pleaded. She couldn’t stop staring at the blood trickling down Zeke’s neck and chest.
“Just go!” Zeke shouted. His eyes were harsh, but they were filled with resolve. “I’ll be fine. Brucey! Take care of her and get her out of here!”
Before Clara could do anything, Brucey’s head popped out of her pack and screeched in confirmation.
Before she could say anything else, wings fluttered out of the pack Brucey usually slept in. It immediately took Clara off into the air, straight into the confines between the buildings.
However, Clara’s eyes teared up. She didn’t want to leave Bobo behind again. But no matter how she tried to stop Brucey, he wouldn’t listen to her.
As if he knew that doing so would endanger Clara, and that would clearly be against his mission to protect her. Clara looked back at Bobo who kept staring at her departure, only to once again get attacked by flying knives at him.
And this time, he got hit–multiple times.
“Bobo!”
Clara shouted as her voice trailed farther and farther away, taken by Brucey who flew at high speed.
…..
Zeke exhaled in relief to find Clara flying further and further away. Thankfully Brucey is the type to stay on course no matter what she said as long as it’s for her safety.
Honestly, he was amazed at how fast Brucey can be. He was sure even if he put his all into his Dexterity buff, he would have a difficult time catching Brucey, but that was better than he could ever hope for. Now Clara can make a quick getaway and a trusty bodyguard to protect her.
He did feel bad for leaving things like that, especially for screaming at her, but it was necessary. Clara was worried too much over something she couldn’t do anything about. It was the best part of her, but it was important that she managed to get away.
And there’s the fact that he messed up and got two more knives stuck on his leg and arm.
He winced, the pain excruciating for a solid moment. Even when his Endurance was high up there and Pain Resistance being his most highest skill at the moment, the pain was enough to recognize that this attacker was not to be trifled with. He wondered if it was some sort of skill specialized in this type of thing.
He pulled the two knives out with no care, blood seeping and staining his good clothes. While the armor could repair itself thanks to Cronus, he still winced at the clear bloody stain on it. He really looked like a doctor that botched a major surgery.
He healed his injuries as he focused on his surroundings. He noticed that there weren't a lot of people–if at all, which only increased his weariness.
How can anyone not notice an attack hitting someone and a little girl screaming? Obviously this was some sort of trap. The thing was–he can’t pick up on anything that made it look like he was caught in some kind of illusion or other form of mimicry.
More knives came to him, this time dodging each one as he had no intention of taking any blows. With Clara there, he would gladly use his body like a shield, but now that she is gone, he can focus fully on counterattacking.
That’s when he noticed something was off. His eyes picked up that the knives that attacked him were coated with something. It wasn’t quick, but it quickly spread across his body like a fume.
He cast Restoration with no hesitation, washing his body entirely of the strange toxins.
Poison knives, Zeke thought, finally recognizing the individual that was attacking. An assassin?
He never imagined that he’d faced an assassin in his life, but then again, he never expected to fight monsters, if at all. But when that same assassin approached him with calm steps and a guarded demeanor, he tensed immediately.
It was a female figure, a few inches shorter than him. She wore a dark cloak that covered her identity on top of wearing dark leather armor, which was only made worse in the dark time of night. Though her lithe frame and noticeable curves proved that she was a woman. He tried identifying, but as expected, his Identify only gave him question marks, the same as when he tried Identifying Cronus.
But despite that, he could tell that she wasn’t Journeyman. She was an Expert, definitely just below level 60. Yet that Expert managed to hurt his body and almost poison him. Whoever this assassin was, she was clearly a top-notch Expert Assassin.
And she wasn’t done. Suddenly her hands wielded two curved blades that shimmered under the lamp posts. Her calm steps despite throwing so many knives at him was unnerving, to say the least.
He took a cautious stance, his arms raised as he readied himself.
“Did you really have to attack me with a child by my side? What if you hurt her?”
He talked, mostly to gauge what kind of person this woman was. Strangely, she spoke back, but her voice was shuffled, as though through a filter.
“My target was never the child. It was you.”
“Any reason for that?” Zeke asked. He read enough novels to know that assassins don’t just come at you for no reason. “I don’t think I did anything worthy of being killed over.”
“Everyone always says that,” The woman coldly responded, her blades flashing as she crossed them in front of herself.
Stolen story; please report.
She ran at him faster than the naked eye could pick up. It was only thanks to his heightened awareness that he managed to flare all of his buffs and dodged the sharp jab coming at his head.
He used his momentum to round kick at the girl but she jumped to dodge. She spun and lashed out at him again, getting him to jump back from the blow.
The two went against each other, nearly striking and nearly missing every single hit they made. Zeke’s mind whirled at the impossible speed of this woman despite being an Expert.
Meanwhile, the girl was fast, and incredibly precise. Each blade strike aimed at his vitals, and he was sure that his armor wouldn’t be able to defend against her strikes, not knowing exactly what those blades can do even to his Journeyman body.
But just as he was getting used to her movements, something red hot glowed in front of him.
Flames licked at his face, burning across his cheek as he managed to tumble away from her. Looking back, her blade was covered in bright flames that illuminated the dim darkness surrounding them.
His cheek burned, but a quick heal managed to stifle that. The girl sounded almost frustrated.
“I hate healers…”
“Who sent you?” Zeke yelled out. “What did I do? I have the right to know!”
“You have the right to shut up.”
The girl barked back as she rushed at him, this time faster than he could keep up.
A faint trace of wind left her, realizing that it was another form of a magic spell. Zeke growled as he jumped up and stepped onto a magical disk, courtesy of Ethereal Manifest. The girl slashed just where he stood, looking up at him.
Deep within the cowl of her hood, he noticed she wore a black mask that completely covered her face. Still, he could predict a look of surprise as he ran over to the other side, using more conjured disks like steps.
The girl followed up with a quick jump herself, except now she boosted herself with a powerful thrust of air mana behind her, flying straight at the still airborne Zeke. Now that he got his bearings, his pens flew up beside him. After casting more disks, he drew them with his floating pens and launched the hovering disks at the assassin.
Each disk boomed, leaving a trail of explosions right towards the flying girl. She accurately flew around using a zig-zag motion, using her air type spell to maneuver her flight. Her blades nearly caught Zeke, slashing at his forearm and hand with a graze.
He took this momentum and grabbed her cloak by the handful. The girl yelped, strange for an assassin in his opinion, as he hurled her straight down to the ground.
She landed with a loud thud, hitting the ground with a painful groan escaping from her. Zeke just can’t shake the feeling that this girl was young–really young.
Young, but very, very driven. She picked herself up quickly just as he launched himself straight at her. His foot was just about to reach her face before she dodged out of the way.
His foot landed on the ground, leaving a large cracked street behind before pursuing the would-be assassin with a flurry of punches and kicks.
He finally managed to land a blow, his fist connecting to a raised arm unwilling to take a hit to the face. Unfortunately for her, his fist caused her arm to make a nasty crack before driving her away into a nearby lamppost.
Her body collided with the pole, leaving the thing to break in an odd angle, the power of the light shutting down immediately, giving its flast flickers of life before vanishing into darkness. Once again, guilt filled him to see this supposed young girl get so hurt–but he steeled himself.
The assassin was trying to kill him. He had no qualms of hurting her to this extent, perhaps more if she kept going. But he didn’t plan on outright killing her. He imagined a bunch of scenarios of what to do once he finished the fight, but before he could even consider one of them, the fight clearly shifted.
Before he could even sense it coming, something crashed from above him, pushing his head down to the stone street and causing it to break under his head and weight. He grunted from the sudden pain as he clearly felt a hand holding tight onto the top of his head, way bigger and meatier than a normal human’s hand.
A shadow encompassed his body, and he felt his vision blackened from the clearly large size. Looking up, he saw what looked like a werewolf, almost like Zyler–but it was smaller and leaner than the normally toned and predatory werewolf form Zyler used.
Strangely, however, its voice was deep and guttural, almost constantly growling which almost hurt his Journeyman ears.
“Almost bit the dust there, eh?” The wolf said, making it impossible for Zeke to figure out which gender it belonged to.
The assassin picked herself up, her arm hanging limply to the side. She dug around by her belt, and picked what looked like a small container with a sharp needle at the bottom end. She plunged the needle deep into her limp arm, not even uttering a sound as the container made a small hissing sound.
The arm quickly shifted, bones beginning to crack and reform at that very moment. Zeke recognized that what she used was like a shot of health potion straight into her veins, reforming her once limp arm into a fully functional one just a second later. She swung her now fixed arm up and down, testing the muscle and bone and saw that it worked properly.
At the same time, before Zeke could try to comprehend what was going on, he felt a sharp jab straight to his neck. He panicked, realizing that the damn wolf used its other hand to use the same small container with the needle down to his own body. As pain welled at the spot of his neck, the hissing sound made him panic even more as he felt something powerful being thrusted into his very veins.
At first, it was uncomfortably chilly, then it became icy cold as numbness spread throughout his body, starting from his neck all the way down his body. It was a fast acting concoction, and the notification that came up to his vision proved that it wasn’t at all a health potion.
You are afflicted with Acidic Venom Lotus.
Your resources are reduced by 25%. You will receive damage after each second as long as the venom runs through you. Your mana and stamina is being disrupted, causing any skill below Epic rarity to be canceled.
His body froze up, unable to even speak as pain fueled his mind, ignoring his Pain Resistance entirely. He realized then that the venom targeted his skills below Epic, and Pain Resistance was still at Rare rarity.
But he could tell that even if Ethereal Manifest could still be casted, the pain was too intense for him to focus on it. He could only be able to focus on one single skill that could help him at this moment–his Legendary Restoration skill.
But he looked up, unable to even function as his vision blurred, sharp ice needles flowing across his body and extremities as he heard the slow footsteps of the assassin approaching him.
“He’s a real tough one, I’ll give you that,” The wolf kept speaking, sounding almost surprised. “Better hurry up and deal with him. This poison won’t last long.”
“I know,” The assassin said coldly, brandishing her clearly poisoned blades. She looked down at Zeke, his vision only getting worse by the second as she spoke again. “You only have yourself to blame. You shouldn’t have messed around in the guild’s territory.”
He racked his brains, trying to figure a way out of here. But his options were limited, and his body was no longer responding, only to the rising panic that he could actually die. The assassin’s steps somehow became dull as his heart sped up at the rising guilt that came to him.
He was going to die. Right here in the middle of the street at night while his family was left in this world. Who’s going to take care of them? What are they going to do? Can Mikella handle things on her own? What would happen to Clara after realizing that he died after running away?
The thoughts were too much to bear, and he was just willing to let it all go and give into his attunement; a terrible but definitely possible last resort. But if it meant somehow surviving from this, then he’s willing to drop everything and let it go.
Thankfully, he never needed to go that far.
The werewolf holding him down screamed in pain as a literal spear pierced through his chest. It was a pained roar that got him to let go of Zeke and roll away, trying to take the spear out of his chest.
The assassin watched in alarm as Zeke could hear the wings flapping ruthlessly from above. He knew it wasn’t Brucey, his wings being small and hard to notice. They were powerful flaps that sent gusts of wind at each interval, the owner arriving in faster than what could possibly be realistic.
But Zeke grinned, knowing who the roaring dragon that came to his aid.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing to him, assholes?!”
Mikella’s roar echoed out, similar to an enraged dragon on a hunt to protect her kin.